This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy, That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring, And more than so, presenteth to mine eye Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed, What should I do, seeing thee so indeed, That tremble at th' imagination? The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed, I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow, If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow. But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me; Or at the fox, which lives by subtlety, 7 Or at the roe, which no encounter dare: Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs, And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hounds. And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep, To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell; On the other hand, to OVERSHUT his troubles,] This is the reading of all the old copies, but Steevens suggested that it was a misprint for overshoot. Malone takes "overshut" in the sense of shut up or conclude. the word may seem a little overstrained, but nevertheless it is the ancient authorities. This meaning of safer to adhere to 8 The many MUSETS] "Musets" seems employed as the diminutive of muse, -the aperture in a hedge made by the hare in its frequent passage through it: possibly from the Ital. muso, and musetto. And sometime where earth-delving conies keep, And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer. For there his smell, with others being mingled, Then do they spend their mouths: echo replies, By this, poor Wat', far off upon a hill, Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch And being low, never reliev'd by any. Lie quietly, and hear a little more; Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise: For love can comment upon every woe. Where did I leave ?-No matter where, quoth he; The night is spent. Why, what of that? quoth she; And now 'tis dark, and going I shall fall. And sometime SORTETH] i. e. Consorteth or accompanies; from sort, which was often of old used for a company. See Vol. ii. p. 219; Vol. iii. p. 288; and Vol. iv. pp. 33. 65. 1 By this, poor WAT,] "Wat" is still the name for a hare in many country districts it may be often heard in Warwickshire. :: 2 But if thou fall, oh! then imagine this, The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips, Rich preys make true-men thieves; so do thy lips Lest she should steal a kiss, and die forsworn. Now, of this dark night I perceive the reason: And therefore hath she brib'd the Destinies, Of mad mischances, and much misery; As burning fevers, agues pale and faint, Surfeits, impostumes, grief, and damn'd despair, And not the least of all these maladies Are on the sudden wasted, thaw'd, and done, Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity, and frenzies wOOD;] "Wood" is mad, wild. See Vol. ii. p. 205, and Vol. iii. p. 717. What is thy body but a swallowing grave, Which by the rights of time thou needs must have, If so, the world will hold thee in disdain, So in thyself thyself art made away, A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife; Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets, Nay then, quoth Adon, you will fall again For by this black-fac'd night, desire's foul nurse, If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues, Lest the deceiving harmony should run And then my little heart were quite undone, No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan, 3 Seeming to bury that posterity,] Shakespeare either here, or more probably in his Sonnet 3, repeats himself, "Or who is he so fond will be the tomb Of his self-love, to stop posterity ?” But gold that's put to use more gold begets.] So in Marlowe's "Hero and Leander," Sest. I. (Edit. Dyce, iii. p. 15), as cited by Malone: "Then, treasure is abus'd When misers keep it: being put to loan What have you urg'd that I cannot reprove? Call it not love, for love to heaven is fled, Which the hot tyrant stains, and soon bereaves, Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain, More I could tell, but more I dare not say; Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended, With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky, Which after him she darts, as one on shore The path is smooth that leadeth ON TO danger;] This is the text in the 4tos, 1593, 1594, and 1596, but in the edition, 1600, “on to danger" is altered to "unto danger," and that the compiler of " England's Parnassus" used the latter, we have the evidence derived from the fact that the line there given runs, "The path is smooth that leadeth unto daunger." 6 my heart of TEEN :] "Teen" is sorrow. See previous instances of its use in Vol. iv. p. 308; Vol. v. p. 112. |